End of the semester

Many of you WHSLA members know that I'm a library assistant, and just started working towards my MLIS in September.  It was rough.  Honestly, around midterms, I questioned every decision I've ever made and wanted to give up.  But I'm happy to report that I survived my first semester!  Here are just some of the exciting things I learned:

• Three classes plus working full time is insanity.  I won't try that again.
• "Biblioblogosphere" is a legit term, despite what spellcheck is telling me.  And we're part of it!
• Perfect scores are rare.  Learn to embrace "good enough."
• Have you heard of the Mundaneum?  It was an ambitious attempt to catalog ALL the world's knowledge long before the Internet existed.
• Prepping your meals ahead of time (or having an awesome loved one who will feed you) helps immensely.
• I joined a librarian meme group on facebook because humor helps me cope with stress (and it's nice to be around so many people who share my weird sense of humor).  A librarian whose name I recognized from a paper I'd just cited for my term paper posted something, and I turned into a fangirl.  Luckily, she was flattered that I enjoyed her article.  Hopefully I get to tackle this topic again (how libraries can help fight the spread of misinformation) because she's an amazing resource!
• I'm taking online classes, so I worked with students from all over the country and got to hear perspectives from all kinds of libraries.
• Melville Dewey, despite his many library accomplishments, was a creeper.
• There is SO MUCH READING.
• Organizing a research paper, particularly one requiring 15+ citations, is really difficult.  I suspect I'll be more practice in this area.  Any suggestions to make it less painful would be more than welcome.
• In fact, any advice and suggestions you have about how to survive and thrive in grad school would be greatly appreciated.  Leave them in the comments, or send them to me at annie dot lipski at aurora dot org (not today, bots!  I know you can't identify email addresses if I write them out like that!).

Last day of the semester

First day of the semester!